Updated 5/3/21

Following several recent incidents regarding the military and UFOs that have gone public, a number of politicians are once again emphasizing the need for a thorough examination of the UFO phenomenon, especially as a potential threat to national security.

The incidents in question began being reported in late March, when The Drive published an article on a series of "drones" or "UAVs" (Unidentified Aerial Vehicles) which were said to have pursued several U.S. Navy vessels in July of 2019. According to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, as many as six aircraft reportedly performed maneuvers over the Navy warships for prolonged periods in low-visibility conditions near a sensitive military training range less than 100 miles off Los Angeles. The incidents were reportedly investigated by personnel from the Navy, Coast Guard, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and received major attention, including the Navy's highest ranking officer, the Chief of Naval Operations.

In a follow-up article for The Drive, Tyler Rogoway posited that a "very terrestrial adversary is toying with us in our own backyard using relatively simple technologies—drones and balloons—and making off with what could be the biggest intelligence haul of a generation."

“Our team here at The War Zone has spent the last two years indirectly laying out a case for the hypothesis that many of the events involving supposed UFOs, or unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), as they are now often called, over the last decade are actually the manifestation of foreign adversaries harnessing advances in lower-end unmanned aerial vehicle technology, and even simpler platforms, to gather intelligence of extreme fidelity on some of America's most sensitive warfighting capabilities,” he wrote.

Two images released last April by Mystery Wire of unidentified flying objects said to have been taken from within an F-18. (Mystery Wire) — Two images released last April by Mystery Wire of unidentified flying objects said to have been taken from within an F-18. *(Mystery Wire)*

In-between the release of those articles, Mystery Wire published a series of photographs said to have been taken at 3:02 p.m. on March 4th, 2019 by "an F-18 weapons systems officer (WSO) seated behind the pilot" who "used his iPhone to capture images of three different objects he encountered in the same airspace."

These photos were said to have been taken around the same time as another one, which was first posted to Twitter in May of 2020.

The image shared to Twitter in May of 2020 by Blake S. Taylor, said to have been taken around the same time as those released by Mystery Wire. Skeptics compared the object in this photo to a balloon featuring comic book character Batman. (Blake S. Taylor) — The image shared to Twitter in May of 2020 by Blake S. Taylor, said to have been taken around the same time as those released by Mystery Wire. Skeptics compared the object in this photo to a balloon featuring comic book character Batman. *(Blake S. Taylor)*

Despite attempts to debunk the photos, the objects captured are still reportedly listed as “unknown” by the Pentagon’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF).

Those photographs were followed by a video released by filmmaker Jeremy Corbell a few days later. In addition to the photos previously published by Mystery Wire, the video purportedly shows a July 2019 incident involving multiple "pyramid-shaped" craft recorded by an infrared camera from the deck of the USS Russell and an event series involving a "spherical" craft, said to be a transmedium vehicle capable of flying through air and descending into water, seen from the USS Omaha.

Critics of the “pyramid” craft video have pointed out that the aperture of many cameras will make out-of-focus lights appear to be triangular, and the flashing lights are consistent with a mundane aircraft. Still others suspect that the object might be a high-altitude balloon of tetrahedral shape, which have been in use since at least the 1970s.

After the release of the photographs and video, Intelligence Committee Chairman Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) both gave statements to Mystery Wire.

Although Sen. Warner declined to confirm whether or not he had viewed the video or photos, he did stress the need to investigate the phenomena.

“One of the things that has changed, and I [have] received classified briefings on this, so I can only give you the top line is that the military has seen enough things where they’re actually now encouraging pilots to report,” Sen. Warner said. “You know, if there are objects flying over military installations that could pose a security threat.”

“If there’s something out there, let’s seek it out," he added. "It probably is a foreign power. But I think, you know, the past approach that the military had, which was the pilot saw something to kind of say, whatever you do, don’t record, it’s gonna look bad on your record. And now say, no, if you’re seeing things and if we’ve now seen there’s actual visual recorded evidence, we gotta sort this out.”

Sen. Rubio, the former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee under President Trump, told Mystery Wire, “The bottom line is that we’ve had now consistent reports of objects flying over military installations and military training areas. And it’s not the US government. And so anytime I see things flying over installations that are not ours, we need to know who they are. We need to know why they’re there. And that’s the way I focus on it. Other people want to speculate about other things that are more exciting. And all that sort of thing. And, you know, I don’t we just don’t know what it is. I think at a very basic level, there are things flying over our military installations, or if there’s things flying over the skies of the United States, and we don’t know what they are, where they came from. We need to have answers to it. And we need to be working on getting an answer to it.”

In their Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, the Senate Intelligence Committee, led at the time by Sen. Rubio, included a directive ordering the Director of National Intelligence (DNI)—in consultation with the Secretary of Defense—to create a report regarding “unidentified aerial phenomena,” which is the current government nomenclature for UFOs. That bill led to the creation of the UAPTF, the organization said to be creating the report, which has a deadline of this June.

Sen. Rubio expressed doubt that the report would be created on time.

“I suspect that it won’t be back in time. Because the government consistently misses deadlines on reporting,” he said. “And because frankly, I’m not sure a lot of work had been done previous to our mandate on a report.”

In a subsequent interview with former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the senator echoed the sentiments expressed by Senators Warner and Rubio, expressing satisfaction in the government’s current response to the UFO phenomenon.

Sen. Reid has long been a vocal supporter of UFO research, and in 2017 it was revealed that he sponsored the Pentagon’s Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program (AATIP), which was reportedly run from 2007 until 2012.

"The federal government no longer, including people at the Pentagon, no longer criticize or harass or stop promotions of people who report these occurrences. In fact, they have done just the opposite in recent months, they now tell their pilots...to report these unusual circumstances," he told George Knapp at Mystery Wire. "And I appreciated the honesty of the Pentagon. Because when asked, what were these things, they say we don’t know. Rather than try to say they were balloons from some kind of a weather experiment. They say we don’t know. And that’s honest. That’s being honest."

Sen. Reid seemed optimistic when asked about the UAPTF’s upcoming UFO report.

"I don’t see how we can lose anything by this report,” he said. “I hope it’s substantial. Hope they don’t run from the subject. But you know, we have Senator Warner from Virginia, very conservative Democrat, who is speaking out on this. We have Marco Rubio from Florida, who by the way, was raised in Las Vegas was speaking out on this issue. So I think that the conversation is good. And the other thing that I think is important is that we now have better equipment, pilots from the airplanes with their cell phones, taking some dramatic pictures."

During the interview, Knapp brought up the idea of foreign involvement in military UFO reports, saying "I mean, we have to assume, and we have to at least keep our minds open to where they’re from the idea that China has made advances in their drone technology. I don’t know if it’s scarier that it’s an unknown, or if it’s scarier that our adversaries have made great strides in technology."

To which Sen. Reid responded, "And always remember, Russia, the former Soviet Union, is run by a man who ran the KGB. They had as many as 30,000 agents at one time, KGB agents. So, Russia’s involved in this, no question about it."

Ultimately, said Sen. Reid, “I believe that there should be an ongoing entity, within the Pentagon would be the best place for it, whose sole job is to stay on top of the issue of UFOs.”

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